The Evolution of Relating to Yourself
in 2020 I had the choice to either:
1. Make $100k a year continuing down the path I thought I always wanted.
2. Let go of who I thought I was and grow this beast of a Summer Squash.
Let me tell you why choosing this squash was the best decision of my life.
I was a downright rebel and I thought I was way too cool to live a standard life.
I wasn’t wrong,
I just was devoting all of my energy into resenting the system and building up this idea of who I thought I was in staunch opposition to the path that was the status quo.
I was a radical thinking
Jesus loving
dirty barefoot hippie
living in van
architectural designer
“ill do everything myself.”
Drop all responsibility when the waves are good type of human.
I was deeply leading with my ego convinced that I was the most humble person ever.
None of this was wrong for me to be, to do, or to believe but the deeper issue was that I never checked myself and tuned into to my underlying narrative that created ALL of that.
I was deeply trusting of my intuition except when it told me to change and to let go of the identity constructs.
When I was in conflict with my intuition I reinforced more of the idea of myself that I was attached to.
I clung harder to what my life looked like on the outside as opposed to letting myself truly feel what was arising on the inside.
And boy did I think it looked great on the outside!
- Surfing Malibu whenever it was good
- Getting ready to tour around the world on the longboard circuit
- Running my own business, poorly but profitably, designing architecture and furniture for rich people
- Living in classic 1960’s van because who needs a home when you have a workshop
- Free of so much responsibility that most of the world has to endure
but the fire was dwindling, and I was in resistance to letting go of this idea of myself that I had dreamed of as a kid.
There’s the irony.
I was a young adult living the life my teenage rebel dreamed up.
So naturally, all the adult stuff I resented.
I feared deep commitment.
I didn’t want to register anything with the government.
Anything that made me stand in a line I hated.
I never went to the dentist.
The list goes on.
I was living the life my wounded teenage self dreamed up as my non-teenage self.
It looked great, there was money, there was freedom, albeit distorted, there was love but all of these manifest in the way that a 15 year old would’ve wanted.
That was no longer working for someone in their mid 20’s.
Meanwhile, my partner was so deeply embodied in the now and was expanding her idea of self so rapidly that I literally could not uphold that idea of myself any longer.
The space between my world on the outside on my world on the inside was so radically different and I had all of this repressed anger and resentment and frustration that it all came pouring out one evening during an intense season of my first ego-death.
I was alone in a sacred Chumash canyon at a ceremonial bathing site, and I just flat out died.
Everything I thought I was spiraled into the waters before me.
Visions, memories of lives past and future flashed.
Owls hoo-ed,
Coyotes howled,
Bats swirled above,
And suddenly for once, it didn’t matter who I thought I was.
Nothing fcking mattered. IT was just pure presence.
My reality, if just for a few moments, shifted from person to presence I felt what freedom truly feels like.
Weeks later I dropped my whole life, except my relationship.
Wrapped up projects, cancelled future ones, terminated the lease on my prime-time industrial space and packed it all up and headed north.
All I wanted was deep connection. I didn’t care what people would think of me, I didn’t care about success in society’s terms, I didn’t care to continue any of what used to be important to me.
I dropped a heaping TON of resistance I had been storing in my body and I felt so purely present with everything exactly as I was.
Paradoxically,
Once I released the resistance I had been storing around letting go of my identity, everything that I used to do that I grew numb to then amplified.
I felt love welding and building again.
I genuinely connected with people who sincerely wanted my work.
Surfing felt so much more fun even in much shittier conditions.
Food even tasted better.
My partner and I Renovated a little shack on a big farm on the coast and now we grow our own food.
I go to the beach every morning regardless of how the waves are or who is going to be there or any of that southern California bullshit.
I just do what feels nourishing for me, and feel so blessed and rewarded for all the decisions both large and small that I made.
Everything changed but nothing changed.
My business is the same model, just refined.
My relationship is with the same woman, just refined.
My home is still on the coast, just refined
My surfing is still, well, my surfing, now I just don’t care who sees.
The deepest lesson is that you don’t need to pick up an entirely new life to fee like you are living an entirely new life.
You can simply update your relationship to everything that is already present by just allowing your fundamental story of self to ebb and to flow.
Of course,
There is so much trial and tribulation along the way, but the answer does not need to be a cabin in the woods where everything is complete shock to your nervous and your life is tangibly different in every way.
Profound transformation can happen and your life can look really similar on either end of it, but the real litmus test is in how you feel on the other end of it.
Now, as I cook this monster of a summer squash,
My life feels radically more aligned to whom I am evolving to be.
I can allow space for all of what is around me to flow and to change as well without being attached at any stage.
Rejecting society, being too highly attached to anything, and living from an outdated identity is merely a distraction from getting to the core of what it is that you truly want in life.
So,
Release resistance.
Lean in.
Let go.
And allow who you believe yourself to be to evolve.
Capital Y You will thank you.